Optical electronics have become an important part of the consumer electronics industry, arguably one of the fastest growing, rapidly evolving and intriguing industries of modern times. Camera and video equipment have become near ubiquitous in the consumer electronics market, currently being integrated into smart phones, laptop computers, personal digital assistants, and even micro surveillance technologies, as well as employed in dedicated hand-held cameras and video recorders. Much of the successful penetration in the consumer electronics market is due to miniaturization and modularization of optical electronic systems. Camera and video recording equipment, for instance, can be manufactured as modular elements having near plug-n-play capability from the device assembly perspective, not only with respect to mounting a modular element within an electronic device, but with respect to hardware and software interoperability. This plug-n-play capability in conjunction with miniaturization of optics and optical circuits has facilitated very low cost and effective integration of optical components in a wide array of consumer devices.
In addition to the foregoing, advancements in electronics technology in general have reduced the cost of electronic devices and greatly enhanced their technical features and personal utility. This is evident with camera and video recording equipment just as much so with other types of electronic devices. The combination of reduced cost and increased utility generally drives consumer demand upward, and optical electronics has been no exception.
Although advancements in electronics have made great impact over recent decades, a few in particular have specifically facilitated integration of image capture components into consumer electronics. First, improvements in semiconductor technology enable processor and memory chips to become progressively smaller for a given number of transistors. As transistor-based processors and memory have shrunk in size, modularization has become feasible even on the scale of hand-held consumer electronics. Second, miniaturization of optical components including lenses and image sensors has enabled fabrication of these components at a fraction of their volume just a decade ago. While large optical lenses have traditionally been a constraint on the size of video capture devices, this is decreasingly the case, particularly with fixed focus optical devices. Third, digitization of image capture and storage technology has enabled a transition away from film media and toward digital storage media. Modern digital storage media, such as a micro flash chip, can hold many thousands of pictures, feature-length video, and more, on a small flat memory chip that can be plugged into a cell phone, or other hand-held electronic device.
While there has been great technological advancement in optical devices generally, image capture and image processing have observed very profound advancements in particular. For instance, digitization of image capture technology has facilitated great advancements in camera and video recording electronics. Digital image sensors generally comprise a two-dimensional grid of light-sensitive electronic pixels, which can detect varying levels of light energy, varying wavelengths of light, and other optical characteristics. Light incident upon a digital image sensor can be captured by the grid of pixels and—because respective pixels are sensitive to variations in light energy and wavelengths—spatial variations in brightness, contrast and even color over the two-dimensional grid can be captured. When coupled with a suitably positioned optical lens, the incident light can form an image that is projected onto and captured by the digital image sensor. The sensor can then output image data for storage, data processing, image processing, or the like.
One aspect of optical electronic devices receiving significant consumer demand is increased optical resolution. High definition video and television, for instance, refer to higher optical resolution of a display, sometimes referred to as a number of pixels in the display. Increased resolutions often involve higher quality optics and the capture of more optical information. As a result, processing this information at speeds suitable for video utilizes high speed analog and digital circuitry, including processors, memory and clock speeds. These higher speeds can also extend to image processing electronics, which convert image information output by an optical sensor into a usable form for graphical display. A general rule in electronics is that faster signal processing, particularly analog signal processing, consumes more electronic power. In addition, as image capture devices transition to high definition imaging, the graphical resolutions increase and result in the capture and processing of more information at a predetermined frame rate, further increasing power consumption. Moreover, secondary functions, such as real-time error correction, signal conditioning, signal analytics and feedback, and so on, place additional demands on processing equipment. Providing technological improvements while mitigating the impact on resource consumption is among the many challenges that provide a framework for much of existing research and development in optical electronics and related industries.